Upper East Side #6 Read online

  Uh-oh.

  Kaliq licked his fingers and pinched the burning end of the joint until it went out. Then he squirted a little cologne into the air to freshen up the room. Not that he was trying to completely hide the fact that he'd been smoking weed. He just didn't want to gross Porsha out with the smell.

  The doorbell rang and he buzzed her in. "I'm in my room," he said into the high-tech video-intercom system. "Come on up."

  On the bed were his four acceptance letters. He gathered them up, eager to present Porsha with the awesome news: they were both going to Yale! This particular strain of weed always made him horny. Maybe Porsha would finally be ready to have sex, and they could celebrate properly, with their clothes off.

  Or maybe not.

  Kaliq's house was even nicer than Porsha's—after all, it was a whole house with a garden and everything, and since he was an only child, Kaliq even had his own floor. But the stairs always annoyed Porsha. Couldn't his parents just install an escalator?

  "I'm dying," Porsha wailed as soon as she reached the top step. She staggered into Kaliq's room and flopped facedown on the bed. Then she rolled over and stared up at the clear blue sky through the skylight in the ceiling. "At least, I wish I were dead."

  The odds were pretty high that Porsha wouldn't be considering death if she'd gotten into Yale. Kaliq slid his acceptance letters onto his desk and sat down next to her. Gingerly, he brushed his thumb against her flawlessly smooth cheek.

  Thank you, La Mer skin cream.

  "What's going on?" he asked gently.

  "That stupid bitch Chanel got into Yale and every other fucking school she applied to, and I only got into fucking Georgetown. Yale wait-listed me, and I got rejected everywhere else." Porsha rolled over and pressed her face into Kaliq's leg. Today was the day she was supposed to have lost her virginity, but now it was obvious: she was too big a loser to ever have sex. "Oh, Kaliq. What are we going to do?"

  Kaliq didn't know what to say. One thing was certain. He wasn't about to tell Porsha that he'd gotten into Yale, too. She might smother him with a pillow or something. "I know a bunch of guys who got wait-listed at schools last year. Most of them wound up getting in," he offered.

  "Yeah, but not to Yale," Porsha moaned. "All the shitty schools have superlong wait lists because the kids using them as their safeties wind up not going."

  "Oh."

  Typical Porsha. Her idea of a shitty school was any school other than Yale.

  "Yale knows that almost everyone they accept is going to go so their wait list probably has, like, two people on it, and those two people are never going to get in." She sighed dramatically. "Fuck!" Then she sat up and flicked a piece of lint off her jeans. "So what about you? Where'd you get in?"

  Kaliq knew it was wrong to withhold information from his girlfriend—the girl he loved—but he couldn't bear to break her heart.

  Or make her so mad she wouldn't want to fool around?

  "Um," he yawned, like this was the most boring conversation ever. "Hampshire. BU. Brown. That's about it."

  So he forgot to mention Yale. That wasn't the same as lying, was it?

  Um, yes?

  Porsha stared icily at the bare hardwood floor, twirling her ruby ring around and around on her finger so fast it made Kaliq dizzy. He lay down next to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Georgetown is a good school."

  Porsha's body was rigid. "But it's so far away from Brown," she complained.

  Kaliq shrugged and began to massage the spot between her shoulder blades. "Maybe I'll go to BU. I bet there's a shuttle from Boston to DC."

  Tears welled in Porsha's eyes and she kicked at the mattress with her heels. "But I don't want to go to Georgetown. I hate Georgetown!"

  Kaliq pulled her head to his chest and kissed her neck. He and Porsha hadn't been on his bed together like this in months, and he was getting seriously horny. "Have you even been down there to check it out?"

  As a matter of fact, Porsha hadn't visited any school other than Yale. "No," she admitted.

  Kaliq ran his tongue over her earlobe. The peachy smell of her shampoo was giving him the munchies. "I've met a lot of cool girls from Georgetown. You should go down there. Maybe you'll even like it better than Yale," he said, his voice muffled as he nuzzled her neck.

  "Right," Porsha responded bitterly. She was vaguely aware that Kaliq was coming on to her, but she was so upset, all she could feel was his spit on her ear.

  Kaliq fell back on the bed and pulled her on top of him. His eyes were closed and his lips were pressed together in a high, happy, turned-on smile. "Mmm," he moaned, enjoying the weight of her on top of him.

  "I just wish I'd gotten into Yale," Porsha whispered. Then she could whip off her clothes and they could finally do it, just as she'd always imagined. She tucked her head into the crook of Kaliq's chin and breathed in his nice smoky scent. All she needed right now was a good cuddle. Sex would just have to wait.

  Kaliq opened his eyes and sighed heavily. Coitus Interruptus, Part XX, produced especially for him by Porsha Sinclaire.

  Not that he actually deserved sex.

  "Just promise me you'll check out Georgetown," he said, trying to sound like a good supportive boyfriend and not a lying son of a bitch.

  Porsha hugged him tight. Her life was a miserable pit of hell, and her best friend was a deceitful bitch, but at least she had Kaliq—adorable, caring, straightforward Kaliq. And he was right. Visiting Georgetown couldn't hurt. At this point she'd do anything.

  "Okay. I promise," she agreed.

  Kaliq tucked his hand inside the waistband of her jeans but she grabbed it and pulled it out again.

  Well, almost anything.

  6

  "He's here!" Mekhi heard his little sister, Bree, whisper as he closed the front door of the apartment. "Hurry!"

  Mekhi dropped his keys on the rickety old table in the front hall and kicked off his Pumas. "Hello?" he called, padding into the kitchen, where the family usually converged. As usual, Marx, the Hargroves' enormous black cat, lay sprawled on the cracked kitchen table, his head resting on an orange dish towel. Mekhi's half-empty coffee cup was right where he'd left it that morning, near Marx's little pink nose. The kitchen lights were on, and a half-eaten, fat-free blueberry yogurt—Bree's favorite—sat on the countertop.

  Mekhi tugged on Marx's furry black ears. The usual pile of mail was suspiciously missing from the table, and Bree was nowhere in sight. "Yo. Anyone home?" he called.

  "In here," Bree's voice rang out from the adjacent dining room.

  Mekhi pushed open the swinging door to the dining room. Side by side at the table sat Bree and their dad, Rufus. Rufus was wearing a Mets T-shirt, and his wild and wiry gray beard was badly in need of combing. Bree was wearing an expensive-looking silk top, and her nails were painted bright red. In the empty place across from them sat a stack of envelopes, an unopened box of chocolate donuts, and a white paper cup of deli coffee.

  "Have a seat, son. We've been waiting for you," Rufus explained with an anxious smile. "We even got your favorite donuts. Today's the big day!"

  Mekhi blinked. For the past seventeen years his father had complained about the cost of raising and educating two ungrateful teenagers, and constantly threatened to move to a country where medicine and education were publicly funded. Yet he sent Mekhi and Bree to two of the most expensive and competitive single-sex private schools in Manhattan, taped their stellar report cards to the fridge, and was constantly quizzing them on poetry and Latin. He seemed even more freaked out about Mekhi's college acceptance letters than Mekhi was.

  "Did you guys already open my mail?" Mekhi demanded.

  "No. But we will if you don't hurry up and sit down," Bree told him. She tapped the stack of envelopes with a shiny red fingernail. "I put Brown on top."

  "Gee, thanks," Mekhi grumbled as he sat down. As if the whole process wasn't nerve-racking enough. He hadn't anticipated opening his mail in front of an audience.

  Rufus re
ached across the table for the box of donuts and tore it open. "Go on," he urged, before stuffing a donut into his mouth.

  His fingers trembling, Mekhi carefully opened the envelope from Brown and unfolded the sheets of paper inside.

  "Oh my God, you're so in!" Bree squealed.

  "What'd they say? What'd they say?" Rufus demanded, his bushy gray eyebrows twitching excitedly.

  "I got in," Mekhi told them quietly. He handed his father the letter.

  "Of course you did!" Rufus gloated. He grabbed last night's nearly empty bottle of wine from off the table, uncorked it with his teeth, and took a swig. "Go on, open the next one!"

  The second letter was from New York University—NYU—where Yasmine had been accepted early admission.

  "I bet you're in," Bree anticipated annoyingly.

  "Shhhh!" her father hissed at her.

  Mekhi tore open the letter. He looked up at their expectant faces and announced evenly, "In."

  "Whoo-hoo!" Rufus cheered, slapping his chest like a proud gorilla. "Atta boy!"

  Bree reached for the next envelope. "Can I open this one?"

  Mekhi rolled his eyes. Did he have any choice? "Sure."

  "Colby College," Bree read. "Where's that?"

  "Maine, you ignoramus," their father answered. "Will you open it please?"

  Bree giggled and slid her finger under the flap of the envelope. This was fun, like being a presenter at the Oscars or something. "And the Oscar goes to...Mekhi! You're in!"

  "Cool." Mekhi shrugged. He hadn't even gone up to Maine to visit Colby, but his English teacher insisted it had the best writing program on the East Coast.

  Bree reached for the next envelope and tore it open without even asking for permission first. "Columbia University. Oops. They rejected you."

  "Bastards," Rufus growled.

  Mekhi shrugged again. Columbia had a prestigious and demanding creative writing program, and it was so close to home he wouldn't have needed to live in a dorm. But considering the claustrophobic situation he found himself in right now, living at home for the next four years seemed kind of unappealing.

  The last envelope was from Evergreen College in Washington State, so far away it had a sort of romantic appeal. He slid the envelope across the table to Rufus and picked up his complimentary cup of coffee. "Open it, Pops."

  "Evergreen!" Rufus bellowed. "Abandoning us for the Pacific Northwest! Do you have any idea how much it rains out there?"

  "Dad," Bree whined.

  "All right, all right." Rufus tore open the envelope, ripping the letter in the process. He squinted at the mangled sheet of paper. "In!" He grabbed another donut, shoved it in his mouth, and then pushed the box toward Mekhi. "Four out of five—not too shabby!"

  "Let's eat out to celebrate!" Bree cried, clapping her hands. "There's this new restaurant on Orchard Street that is supposed to be really cool. All the models go there."

  Rufus grimaced at Mekhi. "Before you arrived, your sister announced that she is going to be a supermodel. Apparently by the end of the month I'll be riding around in my jet buying racehorses and boats with all the millions she's going to make." He pointed a chocolatey finger at Bree. "You'll cover Mekhi's college tuition, too, right?"

  Bree rolled her eyes. "Dad."

  Rufus squinted at her. "Where'd you get that shirt, anyway?" His forehead grew shiny, the way it did when he was excited. "If you don't stop misusing my credit card, I'm sending you to boarding school. You hear?"

  Bree rolled her eyes again. "You may not have to send me. I'll be happy to go."

  Mekhi cleared his throat noisily and stood up. "That's enough, kids. There's a party later on tonight, but before I go, you can take me out for Chinese. At my place on Columbus."

  "Bor-ing," Bree moaned.

  "You got it," Rufus agreed, winking at him. "By the way, I vote for NYU. That way you can live at home, I can help you study, and in return you can hook me up with some of your brainy female English professors."

  Mekhi felt like he'd stepped into a corny Disney movie about horny stay-at-home dads. He grabbed a donut out of the box, scooped up the pile of letters, and headed into his room. A blank notebook lay on the unmade bed, waiting for him to pick it up and fill it with somber, tortured verse. But Mekhi was too happy to write. He'd gotten into four out of the five schools he'd applied to! He couldn't wait to share the good news.

  The problem was, with whom?

  7

  "What if he's home all alone slashing his wrists or something?" Yasmine fretted out loud. She glared at her twenty-two-year-old sister's leather-clad ass. Ruby was leaning in her bedroom doorway, talking on the landline and her cell phone at the same time, organizing her band's upcoming tour

  "Iceland!" Ruby shouted. "We're number five on the indie charts in freaking Reykjavik!"

  "Big freaking whoop," Yasmine growled, checking her e-mail for the sixtieth time, even though no one ever emailed her. She had convinced herself that Mekhi had been rejected from every school he'd applied to and was at that very moment standing on top of the George Washington Bridge, writing his postscript before he jumped. Even if he had gotten in somewhere, he was probably having some sort of existential apocalyptic moment and was right now wading naked into the Hudson River to cleanse himself of all the creativity-draining negative karma before he could write again.

  If she were being honest with herself, she'd admit that she wasn't really all that worried. Mekhi was a good student and a brilliant writer. He was bound to get in somewhere. All she really wanted was an excuse to call him up and talk to him again, because ever since she'd seen Mekhi in the park on Monday, she couldn't stop thinking about him.

  She'd thought about calling him under the pretense of another interview for her documentary, but that was so obvious, just thinking about it made her break out into a rash. She'd also thought of calling Mekhi's little sister, Bree, under the pretense of asking her to do an interview on what it was like to have a sibling in the throes of getting into college. Then Bree would blurt to Mekhi that Yasmine had called and asked about him, and then maybe Mekhi would call or e-mail her. But come on, how sixth grade could you get?

  Ruby was still parked in her doorway, talking on the phone. This was the problem with Ruby sleeping in the living room and Yasmine having the only bedroom: Ruby treated Yasmine's bedroom like her living room.

  "Hold on. Call-waiting," Ruby told the person on the other end of the line. She plugged her nose and put on a fake operator's voice. "All systems are busy at this time—" She paused. "Oh, hello, Mekhi. Would you mind calling back? I'm on an important call with my band. We're taking over the universe."

  Yasmine lunged for the phone and wrenched it out of Ruby's hand. "Hello?" she said tremulously. "Mekhi? Are you...are you okay?"

  "Yup," he replied, sounding happier than she'd ever heard him sound. "I got in everywhere except Columbia.

  "Wow!" Yasmine responded, absorbing the information. "But you want to go to Brown, right? I mean, you're not even really considering NYU or those other schools?"

  "I don't know," Mekhi answered. "I have to think it over."

  They were both silent for a moment. They'd discussed the obvious, but there was so much more to discuss, it was kind of overwhelming.

  "Well, anyway, congratulations," Yasmine managed to utter, suddenly feeling incredibly sad. Mekhi was going to Brown in Providence, Rhode Island, where he'd probably meet some long-haired, skinny girl from Vermont who made pottery and played guitar and knitted him sweaters, while she stayed in New York and went to NYU and continued to live with her freak of a sister.

  Ruby grabbed the phone out of her hand. "Hey Mekhi, guess what? I'm going on tour for like eight months with SugarDaddy. We're leaving next week. Why don't you move in here? You and my sister can have, like, your own little love pad!"

  Yasmine glared at her. Leave it to Ruby to completely mess things up in the most tactless, embarrassing way possible. Ruby handed back the phone and Yasmine held it a few inches aw
ay from her ear. What the fuck was she supposed to say now?

  Mekhi wasn't opposed to the idea of living parent-free in a cool neighborhood like Williamsburg, and living with Yasmine might actually be kind of great. She could make her films, he could write. It would be like Yaddo—one of those retreats for writers and artists that his dad had gone to back in the old days. Maybe they'd even wind up getting back together and having lots of sex all the time, just like all those artists and writers were rumored to have done back in the seventies.

  Still, everything was happening kind of fast. His cleared his throat. "I'll have to talk to my dad about it. We're going out for Chinese tonight to celebrate. How 'bout we meet at that party on West Street afterwards?"

  Yasmine was hardly the partying type, but she supposed Mekhi had a reason to want to celebrate. "Sounds good," she agreed.

  "And I'll talk to my dad about the moving-in thing. I think it could be kind of cool," Mekhi told her, sounding rather cool himself.

  Yasmine suddenly felt like the girl in those corny happy-ending movies she'd always hated. The one who lives happily ever after with her adoring husband in a house with silk curtains in the windows instead of black sheets like she and Ruby had.

  "Cool," she enthused, even though it had always been one of her least favorite words. She clicked off and handed the phone back to her sister, who was still jabbering on her cell phone. "Can I borrow some stuff from your closet?" Yasmine whispered.

  Ruby cocked an eyebrow at her and nodded silently. Looks like this is going to be some party.

  8

  Porsha stepped off the elevator and stood staring at the homemade banner taped to the front door of the penthouse. "YAY , Porsha! we're so proud of you!" it read. She pushed open the door. Mookie, Tahj's exuberant brown and white boxer, waggled over and shoved his wet nose between her legs.

  "Fuck off," Porsha growled. For a brief moment she wondered if a miracle had occurred. Maybe her France-living gay dad or some other kindhearted fairy had put in a call to Yale and they'd decided to accept her right away. It was unlikely, but—